Passenger aircraft which are used at present include a pressurized cabin, the internal pressure of which in flight operation is kept at an increased pressure level compared with the ambient pressure, i.e. the reduced atmospheric pressure at great height, e.g. by an air-conditioning system which is fed with air tapped from the engine. In general, the pressure within the cabin of a passenger aircraft in flight operation of the aircraft, i.e. if the aircraft is at cruising altitude, usually corresponds approximately to the atmospheric pressure at a height of 8000 feet (about 2400 m). The conditioned air provided by the aircraft air-conditioning system is usually fed into the cabin through air inlet ducts, which open into the cabin above the passenger seats in the region of ceiling lining panels and/or side lining panels of the cabin lining. Exhaust air is usually discharged from the cabin through air outlet ducts, which are arranged in the region of a cabin floor or a section of the side lining panels near the floor. In the case of decompression, i.e. in the case of a pressure loss in a region of the aircraft cabin which is kept at increased pressure during flight, to prevent damage to the cabin lining, in particular to the side lining panels, in the case of decompression a pressure equalization must be possible between the region of the aircraft interior affected by the decompression and a region which is delimited by the panels, in particular the side lining panels of the cabin lining, and the outer skin of the aircraft.
To make pressure equalisation possible in the case of decompression, in the unpublished German patent application DE 10 2009 012 015.7, a decompression arrangement for an aircraft was proposed, comprising: a first cabin lining element with an edge region, a second cabin lining element with an edge region, the edge region of the second cabin lining element being arranged at a smaller distance from an aircraft outer skin than the edge region of the first cabin lining element, an air removal aperture between the edge region of the first cabin lining element and the edge region of the second cabin lining element for discharging air from the cabin of the aircraft into the region of the aircraft between the cabin lining elements and the aircraft outer skin, and a decompression element, which is set up to, in the case of decompression, release a pressure equalisation aperture between the cabin of the aircraft and the region of the aircraft between the cabin lining elements and the aircraft outer skin, and which is arranged in a region of the aircraft which is screened by the first and/or second cabin lining element from an interior of the cabin of the aircraft. Disadvantages of this compression arrangement are that a first and a second, and thus not a one-piece or integrated, cabin lining element is provided, and that the air removal aperture, which is arranged between the edge region of the first cabin lining element and the edge region of the second cabin lining element, including the releasable pressure equalisation aperture, cannot be made arbitrarily large.
Furthermore, in modern aircraft a decompression arrangement is used, in which a side lining panel of the cabin lining has in its lower region, the so-called foot lining, an aperture through which used air from the aircraft cabin can flow into the region between the cabin lining and the aircraft outer skin. This aperture is covered by a flap system, which for a passenger on the cabin side is visible as apparently one covering flap. The flap system has a flap (covering flap) which is arranged on the cabin side and is in one piece, and a flap which is at the rear seen from the cabin, and consists of two flap elements which are held together in their position by a spring sheet.
In normal operation of the aircraft, i.e. when the air removal aperture is used to discharge used air from the cabin of the aircraft, the two flap elements of the rear flap are substantially arranged in one plane, parallel and at a distance from the cabin-side, one-piece flap, so that between the cabin-side flap and the flap elements the air removal aperture for discharging used air from the cabin is formed. In the case of decompression, the flap system as a whole, as seen from the cabin, pivots outward, in which case the two flap elements of the rear flap buckle along the spring sheet on the principle of a knee lever, thereby releasing a fixation of the flap system, so that the latter can pivot as a whole and thus open the aperture. A disadvantage of this known decompression arrangement is the relatively complicated construction of the flap system. Another disadvantage is that here too the air removal aperture cannot be made arbitrarily large.
There is a need to overcome or reduce the disadvantages of the known decompression arrangements. An object on which the invention is based is to provide a decompression arrangement with a simpler construction.